The present invention relates generally to an audio playback apparatus and, more particularly, to an audio playback apparatus which is capable of randomly reproducing music.
Related-art audio playback apparatuses are configured such that, when reproducing music recorded to recording media such as CD (Compact Disk) and MD (Mini Disk), the recorded music may be reproduced in a random manner. Especially, with in-vehicle audio playback systems, random playback is often used for the safety reason that an operation for music selection during driving may endanger driving. With such random playback, although a range of music to be reproduced may be specified in a limited manner, the music to be randomly selected is limited to only one piece of music at a time.
Technologies are known in which, when randomly selecting music files to be reproduced, one of the areas (folders) each directly storing music files is randomly selected, then one of the music files is selectively reproduced, and, after the reproduction, folder selection is executed again to randomly selectively reproduce one of the music files (for example, refer to patent document 1).
[Patent Document 1]
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2002-269958
However, with the related-art playback apparatuses for reproducing small-size recording media such as CD and MD, it is enough for the random playback of one piece of music at a time; with recently-developed audio playback apparatuses which use large-size recording media such as DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) and hard disk and therefore may record stacks of music albums, needs are increasing for the random playback of music on an album or folder basis in addition to the random playback of one piece of music at a time.
Especially, with in-vehicle audio playback apparatuses, random playback is often used because the acts during driving of selecting one album from among many and selecting desired pieces of music from the selected album pose a danger to driving; with the related-art random playback in which playback is performed in unit of one piece of music, if a desired piece of music has been reproduced and the user wants to listen to all pieces of music in the album in which the piece of music just reproduced is contained, the user must executes cumbersome operations of clearing the random playback mode and, after listening to that album, entering the random playback mode again. Thus, although the capabilities of random reproduction on an album or a folder basis provide very high user-friendliness, none of the related-art audio playback apparatuses have these capabilities to the knowledge of the applicant thereof.
It should be noted that the technology disclosed in the above-mentioned patent document 1 is associated with a random playback apparatus which provides the random playback in unit of one piece of music by repeating random playback operations by executing the selection on a folder basis as first selection means and then selecting one of the music files contained in the selected folder file as second selection means, thereby minimizing the continuous selection of music files in the same folder. Also, the above-mentioned patent document does not disclose an effective technology which supports the random playback in unit of an album or a folder.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an audio playback apparatus capable of performing random playback in unit of an album or a folder.